A 5.2 magnitude earthquake early Friday occurred on one of Southern California’s most active faults and triggered hundreds of aftershocks, but caused no major damage, experts and public safety officials said.

The quake occurred near Borrego Springs in San Diego County in a sparsely populated area. Still, the 1:04 a.m. quake was felt from San Diego to parts of L.A. and beyond.

“It’s the biggest one for a while,” said Egill Hauksson, a research professor of geophysics at Caltech.

The last notable quake in Southern California was in 2014 when a 5.1 magnitude quake hit La Habra. But that occurred on a different fault.

Friday’s temblor occurred on the San Jacinto fault, the most active in the region, Hauksson said. More than 450 aftershocks have been reported since the initial quake.

The fault is characterized by less compression between its plates compared to the San Andreas or Newport-Inglewood faults, which means when there is slippage and a quake occurs, it’s less severe, Hauksson said.

But the fault is also remarkably long, which may explain why Friday morning’s quake was reportedly felt by people from Santa Barbara to the Mexican border, Hauksson said.

Reflexively, hundreds of people turned to social media to share their experience and also verify that the quake really happened.

The San Jacinto fault stretches for 130 miles, from the Cajon Pass in San Bernardino County southeast toward the Mexican border. The 1987 Superstition Hills earthquakes, which hit about 90 miles east of San Diego, topped out at magnitudes 6.5 and 6.7, and caused $3 million in damage in Imperial County.

According to the USGS, a quake on the fault in 1918 caused significant damage and one death in San Jacinto.

There have been 19 quakes of 5.0 magnitude or larger on the fault since 1937, Hauksson said.

The largest was a 6.6. magnitude quake in 1968 south of Friday’s temblor. Others included a 5.3 magnitude quake in 1980 and a 5.4 magnitude quake in July 2010, Hauksson said.

”Most of the time when you have an earthquake in Southern California, it’s on the San Jacinto fault,” he said.

The last time Southern California experienced a quake larger than Friday's on any fault was in 2012, when Brawley in the Imperial Valley was shaken by 5.3 and 5.4 magnitude quakes, Hauksson said.

Borrego Springs is a community of about 3,000 people in eastern San Diego County, near the Imperial County line.

In the last 10 days, there have been two earthquakes of magnitude 3.0 or greater centered nearby.